Taste: Surprising Stories and Science About Why Food Tastes Good (29 page)

I once had a brilliant client who was a bit volatile. Actually, that may understate his level of excitability. He was known to jump up from his chair and shout things out during meetings. He yelled and screamed when he was unhappy. And when he was pleased, he was effusive. These personality characteristics are not unusual in an entrepreneur, but they’re terrible during a food tasting meeting, or a
cutting
, as we call it.

The way a cutting is supposed to work is that everyone at the meeting tastes the sample, everyone writes down their comments before anyone says anything, and then—once everyone has had a chance to make up their minds about the food—we share. The problem with this client was that the minute he tasted something he wasn’t crazy about, he would blurt out, “UGH! That is DISGUSTING.” Or, “That’s a fat BOMB. Who in their right mind would eat that?” or “That is the WORST thing I’ve ever tasted.”

Now, imagine you’re in a cutting with him and you really like the thing you are tasting. What if it was your idea? Worse yet, what if you had created the prototype? This client’s negative comments could sway your opinion or at the very least your desire to verbalize your opinion. During one meeting, this exact scenario happened and I lost my temper with him. I couldn’t help myself.

“Can you please keep your comments to yourself until everyone has a chance to taste?” I asked, annoyed.

“Yes, but that appetizer is WRONG!” he spewed.

“No, seriously. You have to keep your mouth shut. When you shout out something while we are still tasting, it’s like you just let out a big fart. It’s impossible to be objective about the food we’re eating while a bad smell is wafting through the room, hanging there, influencing the way we taste the food from that point forward. Your negativity influences our decisions.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Keeping quiet during the initial tasting is the same protocol we follow when we’re testing prototypes with consumers. It shouldn’t be any different with us, the professionals.”

“You’re absolutely right,” he said. He totally took this criticism to heart. In fact, he’s since become quite adept at sensory analysis. And I’m happy to say he never again “farted” on my prototypes.

There are times when you want the tastes and flavors from the foods you’re eating to blend together. I like to dip the corner of my grilled cheese sandwich into tomato soup, for example, because I love the taste of cheese and tomato together in my mouth. The salt and umami tastes in both foods come together synergistically for an explosion of savoriness. When you’re trying to critically analyze foods, you want to do just the opposite. You want to clear your mouth of the taste you just experienced and ready it for the next one.

Professionals cleanse their palates to minimize adaptation. Remember the competitions in which tasters are asked to make judgments on dozens and dozens of wines? According to the concept of adaptation, they’ll be less sharply attuned to each additional taste. This holds true for both taste and smell. Consider walking into a smelly room, perhaps, in which someone has just steamed a bunch of sulfury cauliflower. Or it could be a lovely-smelling room where bread is baking in the oven. Take your choice. In either situation, your brain would short itself out if it kept pinging you with the smell information it is perceiving. It might go something like this inside your brain: toasty, sweet, buttery, toasty, sweet, buttery, yum! Yum! Toasty, sweet, buttery, yum! And so on.

In order to save itself from exploding, your brain adapts to the input instead,
and eventually you don’t even notice that the room smells. That is, until you leave, go outside, and return again to the room, refreshed. That’s what cleansing your palate is also meant to do: refresh you so that you won’t shut down from too much sensory input.

The first time you walk into that smelly room, you experience what I call your
virgin
smell: your first experience with it. The difference between sensory stimuli and losing your own innocence is that you can return to the virgin smell state. You can leave a stinky room and refresh your nose, and you can cleanse your mouth to refresh an adapted palate.

Many things work for cleansing your palate, but food-tasting professionals generally use saltines washed down with filtered water. Saltines contain salt, which is a functional ingredient in the dough, but you can find saltines with unsalted tops, which are what’s commonly used in the industry. Saltines are the best choice for cleansing the palate because they don’t have strong, characteristic flavors like butter, yeast, or nuttiness, which are evident in most baked goods. You’ll often find saltines at wineries that cater to the type of discriminating taster who practices palate cleansing.

I sometimes like to use sparkling water to wash down my saltines, because it feels like it cuts through the fat of some foods better than still water. Either way, a bland cracker and a big swish (or two) of water will help prepare your tongue for the next food. It would be extraordinarily difficult to distinguish between Hot Salsa Sample 3 and Hot Salsa Samples 4 and 5 without cleansing your palate. Cleansing between samples is important in order for you to tell where the tactile heat of one sample starts, when the next one kicks in, and when the burn from each is extinguished on its own. Sometimes it even makes sense to wait a few minutes between sampling.

When I was being tested at the University of Florida’s Center for Smell and Taste, I was given a cup of coffee grounds to sniff between tastings to cleanse my sense of smell. I found this distracting, because coffee is neither mild nor neutral. Some other food professionals I’ve talked to suggest sniffing your own skin, such as the back of your hand. Both of these methods refresh your sense of smell with something else, so they are akin to leaving a room that smells of bread baking. It’s easier in most cases to simply remove the food from your vicinity and take a deep breath of fresh air.

Before doing any of the exercises in
Taste What You’re Missing
, you should start by eating a saltine and drinking some water. Then you’re ready to taste like a pro.

YOU WILL NEED

1-tablespoon measure

Sugar (any type)

2 glasses 1-cup measure

Warm water

A spoon

Saltine crackers for cleansing your palate

Cold water

DIRECTIONS

1. Measure 1 tablespoon sugar and pour it into the first glass. Add 1 cup warm water and stir briskly to dissolve the sugar.

2. Measure 4 tablespoons sugar and pour it into the second glass. Add 1 cup warm water and stir briskly to dissolve.

TASTE

3. Taste the mildly sugary water first. Note how sweet it tastes. This is your virgin taste.

4. Now taste the extra sugary water. Note how sweet it tastes.

5. Without cleansing your palate, go back and taste the first glass. You’ll notice now that the water tastes less sweet than it did when your palate was fresh. That’s because your palate is no longer virgin. You can go back and forth a few times to see how hard it becomes to distinguish sweetness levels.

6. Now cleanse your palate with a cracker, rinse your mouth out with cold water, and wait a few minutes. Then go back and taste the first cup of sweetened water. You’ll see that cleansing your palate really does help alleviate adaptation.

YOU WILL NEED

One type of hot sauce such as sriracha, Tabasco, or Frank’s

4 cups

Tablespoon measure

Water

Whiskey, bourbon, or some other complex brown liquor

Tasting spoons

Saltine crackers for cleansing your palate

DIRECTIONS

1. Pour a small amount of hot sauce into each of two cups. To one, add a few tablespoons water and stir.

2. Pour a small amount of liquor into the two other cups. To one, add a few tablespoons water and stir.

3. Taste the straight hot sauce first. Try to describe what you’re tasting.

4. Cleanse your palate with crackers and water, then wait a few minutes.

5. Try the hot sauce diluted with water. See if you can detect more of the flavor of the hot sauce when it’s diluted.

6. Cleanse your palate with crackers and water, then wait a few minutes.

7. Repeat the exercise with the liquor.

YOU WILL NEED

2 different brands of milk chocolate bars: give each one a letter code. One should be “A” and the other “B.”

Saltine crackers and water for cleansing your palate between tastings

1 printed copy of the Sensory Evaluation and Preference page for sample A for each person who is tasting

1 printed copy of the Sensory Evaluation and Preference page for sample B for each person who is tasting

DIRECTIONS

1. Eat a saltine and drink some water to cleanse your palate.

2. Fill out the Sensory Evaluation form for A first.

3. Fill out the Preference form for A second.

4. Repeat all steps for B.

PART 1: SENSORY EVALUATION

TASTER NAME:__________

SAMPLE: (CIRCLE)   A   B

How is the
brown color
of this chocolate bar?

How is the
shininess/glossiness
of this chocolate bar?

Do you notice any
bloom
on this chocolate bar?

If yes, explain:

How is the “snap”
sound
of this chocolate bar when you break it?

How is the level of
sweetness
in this chocolate bar?